In Which Steam Is Not Convincing Me Of Its Value

Valve Software offered Portal for free, if you got it via Steam. I said "deal!", because hey, I would like to play Portal and free is a good price.

The initial download was no problem--- just left it run overnight. And yet each of the three times since then, Steam has felt it necessary to update Portal before I could play. So the experience is not so much "play the game" as much as "sit around for 10 minutes waiting to play the game."

I am not certain why this is an improvement over other methods of distribution. Nor what updates urgently need to be applied to a game of this age.